


A Long Night's Journey Into Day

by lushthemagicdragon



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: And in which Grindelwald is played by anyone but Johnny Depp, Child Abuse, In which Percival Graves is fancy high society wizard javert, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Religious Guilt, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-09
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-09-07 10:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8797870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lushthemagicdragon/pseuds/lushthemagicdragon
Summary: Percival Graves is well respected, a firm hand in the hierarchy of magical law enforcement.  It should take something extraordinary to bring him to his knees and destroy his reputation.  Something extraordinary comes in the guise of a squib, of all things. Magic knows its equal, his aunt once told him, and we must always look out for one another. A narrative on the fall and rise.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a product of wracking my brain trying to work out how to get from point A to point B. Working out how Graves came to know Credence, and how it can be resolved after the fact. This is going to be a long haul, from start, through Grindelwald, out the other end with some proper resolution. It's also going to be a slow burn so be ready for that, but it without a doubt will be a Gravebone fic by the end. 
> 
> I'll update archive warnings if anything changes as we go through. Rating may change but it probably wont. Chapter title is a quote from Les Miserables, a reference to Javert. This chapter brought to you by listening to the Skeleton Tree album on loop. Beta'd by Airspaniel.

_“None of us can help the things life has done to us._  
_They’re done before you realize it, and once they’re done_  
_they make you do other things until at last everything comes between you_  
_and what you’d like to be, and you’ve lost your true self forever.”_  
  
_― Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey Into Night_

_~_

 

September 3rd, 1926  
  
  
A breeze chilled the morning air, the first cold front of the season pushing towards New York earlier than usual. The fall and then the winter to come, it seemed, would be harsh. Dark clouds moved in from the east, and the light overcast was almost sunny in comparison to its quickly approaching shadow. All signs pointed to rain. While no-maj forecasters hemmed and hawed about the exact percentages to announce on their radios, there would be no witch or wizard who did not know to charm their shoes against water and slippage before leaving their homes for the day ahead. In the morning chill, two Aurors stood concerned not with the coming rain but with the growing crowd around the entrance of a bank near Gramercy Park. That woman on her podium had been preaching her doctrine of panic for nineteen years now, that much Tina Goldstein had discovered before turning her newfound case over to a superior. Nineteen years of being brushed off as a paranoid lunatic by her own kind and of being no concern to the safety of the New York magical community. But given the recent string of exposure offenses and the rising concern regarding the reach of one powerful purist across the Atlantic, it was inevitable that the no-maj would stop being quite so blind and start wondering what exactly it was they were being blinded from. Ms. Mary Lou Barebone had moved the Second Salemers further uptown, placed her podium between the people and where their paranoia hit first--their wallets. A winning combination, and the crowd was listening. That _could_ be a problem. Tina had been right to bring her concerns to Percival Graves' office, once they had been substantiated.

Goldstein and Graves watched from the back as a gaggle of kids handed out fliers with varying degrees of enthusiasm. There were a few children with skips in their steps as if the lives of others were only collateral in a game, a teenage girl with unquestioning belief in her smile, a twitching young man who looked as if he couldn't retreat further into himself if he tried. Graves took stock of the situation, judging the levels of interest in the crowd versus mere curiosity, but with just as much concern took stock of Tina beside him. She was craning her neck, jaw tight and worrying the inside of her cheek. Poor girl was going to tie herself up into a knot so tight she'd be stuck like that. Words he had thrown her way before, with every hover over his desk about minuscule no-maj relations infractions that would inevitably be chocked up to exhaustion or too much to drink. Porpentina Goldstein was always ready to jump in over her head when protecting the innocent citizens of their city was at stake. There's a good moral compass in there. If there wasn't, Graves wouldn't have sponsored her promotion in the first place.

A good moral compass alone does not a skilled Auror make though. Every glance in his direction searching for some confirmation that her trail would be taken seriously marked her as green as grass. Green meant hopeful when it came to who or what could be helped in the grand scheme of things; he followed her line of sight not to Barebone herself but the children.

Graves gave Tina a few more minutes of wary craning before taking the opportunity to step away from the dwindling crowd, away from the fear monger and her tribe of sympathetic faces. He lit himself a cigarette with his fingers once turned away from prying no-maj eyes, ignoring Tina's silent eagerness for his opinion. Never knowing Tina Goldstein able to keep silent when an issue was on the table, he wasn't surprised when inevitably her impatience won over her propriety.

“Well? What do you think?”

He stopped, taking another pull from his cigarette, looking up at the sky to assess the weather. What did he think? He thought it was going to start raining any time soon, and it would come down hard.

“You were right to bring this to me. Keep following, but don't get too close. I mean it, Tina,” He added, emphasizing with pointed cigarette fingers. “Anything changes, you bring it to me. Until then, eyes open, that's it.”

 

 

It was less than two weeks before Tina was standing over Graves' desk with a folder in hand, waiting quietly for him to give her his attention. She had been hovering around the office for a few days now, asking where he was, knocking on his door, poking her head in with hopes that he would be sitting there going through the doldrums of paperwork. Knowing full well that she was looking for him, he had been intentionally avoiding her. Tina's good at what she does, but impulsive and impatient in her worry. In the grand scheme of things there were more important concerns than a no-maj shouting that the end was near on a Manhattan street corner; Tina could do with an exercise in patience and frustration on the job.

The time for that exercise had ended the moment that Giordano sent his notes in for review, covered in pigeon shit. The man had the keenest eye for investigation Graves had ever seen and the right animagus for the job, but that didn't excuse being damn sloppy. A quick _turgio_ had cleaned the pages and his desk, and he sent a memo that Giordano should use his voice instead of a quill in the future, so that his feathered friends could cause less of a problem. It was as if the creak of his chair when he sat back down to finally review Giordano’s notes sent alarm bells through the whole building, set specifically to a frequency that Tina could hear. He didn't look up when he did choose to finally acknowledge her presence, quill continuing to scratch away the seconds.

“What do you want to tell me, Goldstein?”

“I'm worried about the children.” Tina paused as he looked up from his work with exasperated apathy. She opened her mouth as if to say something and then closed it again before continuing, “That woman, there are different kids there every time I've seen her, but three of them are always the same,” Tina shuffled through her folder, picking out a photograph. That same girl with a believer’s eyes, that same young man retreating inwards, a child between them with a hollow stare, looking out at him through the frame. She blinked, her brother twitched. “These three here. Every time I see them they look...harrowed. Something's wrong. I want to investigate further.”

“Tina...”

“I _know_ they're no-maj but I can't just sit around and do nothing if they're being hurt--”

“And do you know that they're being hurt?”

Tina stuttered a breath as she stopped short, and that was answer enough. Graves sighed, putting down his quill and fixing Tina with a somber eye, sympathetic but sure. “They're not our responsibility, and you know that. If we stop and try to help every no-maj we come across then who's going to help our own kind? Them?” Another silent stutter from Tina, as if she had some contrarian statement in response, but her mouth zipped tightly closed when he raised an eyebrow in invitation. He continued, “I understand, I do, but our job is to put our people first, and it's important. If you're that worried about them, send their cops a tip. I want you watching them, don't make me pull you from this case. Are we on the same page?”

She nodded, not deeming herself able to say anything she might regret. He nodded back, and motioned towards the door.

 

 

Two more weeks passed without incident, and Graves was actually impressed. Good, Tina was learning. Updates on the movements and increased rhetoric of the Second Salemers came across his desk at regular intervals, though not without the occasional remark as to the state of the children. _Tuesday, parked in front of NY Hospital, Caught the attention of veterans by announcing that the horrors of the trenches were our doing. One took a pamphlet from the older girl, she looked glassy. Saturday 2 PM, Central Park West, invited a young woman up on the podium to confess her sins like her sins had anything to do with us. The boy was hiding, not looking at anyone, he looked scared._ Concern sat uncomfortably in his stomach. Not a concern for the children like Tina had fostered, he had been at this job for too long not to be able to detach. It was Mary Lou Barebone who worried him, with her surety and her vigilance. Witch hunters who knew exactly which tree would be the right one to throw a rope up were a rare breed these days, but the magical community had been burned over less in the past. Her face stared back at him from the photograph on his desk with a hardness that he could match but with a hateful shrewdness that could, if she were herself a witch, overtake his own sober purpose. She would like that from the sound of it, to be able to overtake him or any of his kind. He sighed, turning over the photograph before her image could start shouting soundlessly in his direction. She would either become a problem or she wouldn't, and with Tina watching her like a hawk there would be no need to waste anyone's time filing for an assessment through the Divination Division.

Graves scratched down the location of their church on Pike Street and put Tina's file aside. He had become engaged in his notes for a meeting with Picquery when a bright red origami mouse scurried up the tunnel leading from the typing pool to his office and came to a halt in front of him. The memo squeaked as he unfolded it, and with a quick glance he was out the door, cloak sliding off of the hook and into his arms.

 

 

“The no-maj who saw what happened said that the ground was torn up by something big, about the size of a car. Said it looked like a cloud of smoke, but alive.”

Graves looked around at the crime scene as Rodriguez filled him in, taking note of how many Aurors were on the scene (four, including them), and how many no-maj were currently in the process of being obliviated (twelve). The asphalt treatment had been torn up from a section of the road with the covered cobbles below upturned and strewn across destroyed pavement. The front door of one adjacent tenement building was crashed in, a window smashed, but the rest of the street remained untouched. This wasn't an explosion or an attack. This was isolated but wild, like an animal or someone out of control. He looked up at the nearest street sign: the corner of Allen and Madison.

“Have you checked the surrounding buildings?”

“Three times. Most of the no-maj around here are at work at this hour so we only had that bunch over there who saw anything.”

“If whatever did this looked like smoke, chances are it knows how to hide. Have Thomas check again. Ask Perkins in Permits about any magical creatures in the area. Also check for any unstable wizards or witches who live nearby ”

“Yes, sir,”

“Graves, what happened here?” An unexpected voice called out from the street corner and Graves stood up from his position down by the destroyed asphalt to find Tina rushing towards him.

“Goldstein, you're not on duty, what are you doing here?”

She didn't answer him, only frowned and bit her bottom lip, looking away from his questioning gaze to focus on the torn up ground.

“What did this?”

“Tina.”

Tina's head shot up at his warning tone and she fixed him with a ferocity he recognized in her as pure earnest. “I was just in the area sir, I swear. Hey, Rodriguez.”

“Hey, Goldstein, if you're on duty do you want to go conjure up some tea for those civilians while Davis obliviates? They're still shaken from the thing that came crashing through here, whatever it was.”

“I'm not on duty, and I'm not--” She sighed and glanced at the stern, inquiring look on Graves' face before returning her attention back to Rodriguez. Graves could swear she looked guilty. “Was it an animal?”

“No idea, they said it came through like living smoke. My guess is a potion gone wrong.”

“Rodriguez, that's enough,” Graves cut in, words like a knife. “Goldstein, go home.” _Whatever you were doing here, stop doing it_ he didn't say, but he didn't need to. That trepidatious guilt lingered in her eyes, and she glanced up quickly at the street signs.

“Do either of you have the time?”

“It's almost one,” Rodriguez responded. Tina nodded like a curse should be under her breath and her eyes shot up to the street sign one more time, a nervous energy thrumming through her.

“Right, okay. Sorry, sir, I've got to go.”

“ _Home_ , Tina.”

She wasn't listening and Graves knew it. He dismissed Rodriguez to go ahead with his instructions as he watched Tina hurry down the street and around the corner. She was nervous, and _definitely_ lying. Not something Tina did unless she believed she was in the right about something. Something she wasn't supposed to be doing. Why had the time mattered so much, and why was she _here?_ The answer hit him like whatever beast, spell or person had crashed into the asphalt when he looked back up at the street sign. Allen and Madison. Lower East Side. Right across from Pike Street.

He turned quickly on his heels, looking down the divide between Pike and Allen, to see Tina disapparate in front of a small prefab church in the distance and push her way inside.

 

Graves didn't make it into the church quickly enough to stop Tina from shooting off her wand and knocking Mary Lou Barebone off of her feet in a flash of light. He rushed up the stairs two at a time, past scattered pamphlets demanding that he and his kind burn. Mary Lou was scrambling, collapsed against the ground and trying to get her bearings. There would be no flight for her, only fight, and she grabbed helplessly for the belt she had dropped. Gripping it in her hand she tried to raise herself up, head spinning and palms split from scraping against the wood floo. She could do nothing but point and shout _“Witch”_ at the Auror on the ground cradling her son, before another flash of light emitted from Graves' wand.

“ _Stupefy,”_ came forth with a marksman's precision and Mary Lou dropped against the wall, out cold.

The steps of Graves' boots against the floor echoed against the tin and wood roof over the Barebone home, empty but for him, their unconscious matriarch, and the pair huddled by the railing.

“Ssh, you're alright Credence, I've got you.”

Graves didn't sigh in disappointment or comment aloud on Tina's mistakes. He could have, but there would be no point. He merely twisted his wand, blue tendrils of magic extending downwards to grasp Tina's wrists and pull them away from the huddled boy.

“Graves, wait---”

The other arm then, and both were bound behind Tina's back. He reached down to hoist her up, and she struggled gently, halfheartedly—anger fully aware of defeat.

“--No, please, just let me—she was _hurting_ him.”

He had stopped listening to her protestations, silently somber as he kept his wand hand angled behind her locked wrists. He instead looked at her, this good Auror with potential who had thrown it all away, and for what exactly? For a no-maj who wanted her dead. A boy who spent his days distributing leaflets that aimed to set their neighbors down upon them. Graves wasn't upset, wasn't angry, instead resigned to his disappointment and pity. Pity that she couldn't be stronger, pity that her talent was to be wasted. She would be sacked for this. Was he worth it?

They say that a wolf can smell its own kind; A metaphor that his aunt had thrown around when he was but a boy. Like wolves, she told her young nephew, we can always tell our kind from the no-maj, can always tell our own from those below us. We always recognize each other, Percival, she said, while sugar spooned itself into her coffee. Magic knows its equal, and we must always look out for one another. She was a colder, harsher person with him, with politics he couldn't say with surety that he agreed or disagreed with, but she had been right about that. Looking down at Credence Barebone, still huddled in on himself with blood on his hands and fear in his eyes, Percival Graves knew. He could see his own kind.


End file.
